Amendment by an almost unanimous vote, largely because of the disabilities it imposed on the leaders of the Confederacy.[48] Instead of remaining a humbly silent spectator of the controversy between the President and Congress, she boldly thanked the President for his “regard for the constitutional rights of states,” and for “the determined will that says to a still hostile faction of her recent foes, ‘Thus far shalt thou go and no farther. Peace, be still.’”[49] She continued to provide for the unfortunate champions of the Confederacy, characterizing this action as “a holy and patriotic duty.”[50] She extended expressions of “sincerest condolence and warmest sympathy” to the illustrious state prisoner, Jefferson Davis, declaring that her “warmest affections cluster[ed] around the fallen chief of a once dear but now abandoned cause.”[51]

These acts and resolutions expressed through the government the spirit which was found among the people by direct observers—a spirit of submission to irresistible force, in some cases sullen, in most cases unrepentant.[52] At that time the absence of that spirit would have been extraordinary. But the public opinion of the North regarded it not as the aftermath of war, which would soon pass, but as a spirit which, if left undisciplined, would break out in another war.

This belief, and the belief that the negroes were destined by the southern governments to suffer injustice and debasement, and that the ballot was their only salvation, gave rise to two corresponding purposes—to chasten the rebellious spirit of the South, and to invest the negroes with the voting franchise by force. To destroy the state governments of the South and rebuild them on a basis of negro suffrage would accomplish both these purposes. This plan was also supported for the sake of a third purpose, viz., to secure for the Republican party the votes of the negroes. There were thus three classes of men bent on abolishing the Johnson government. We may call them the Disciplinarians, the Humanitarians, and the Republican Politicians.

CHAPTER III

CONGRESSIONAL DELIBERATIONS AND ACTIONS CONCERNING THE JOHNSON
GOVERNMENTS, ENDING IN THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS OF 1867

When Congress met on December 4, 1865, President Johnson informed it of the measures he had taken for restoring the southern states and of the conditions he had required as necessary to restoration. He emphasized the requirement that the Thirteenth Amendment be ratified (which, as stated in Chapter I, was complied with in Georgia five days later).

That Congress was not entirely pleased with the President’s course; that it did not agree with him considering the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, the most that could be asked of the southern states, and that it did not intend to give effect to his last suggestion, soon became apparent. In the Senate, on the day on which the President’s message was read, Sumner offered resolutions to the effect that before the southern states should be admitted to representation in Congress they must enfranchise “all citizens,” establish systems of education open to negroes equally with white people, and choose loyal persons for state and national offices.[54] The resolutions concluded: “That the states cannot be precipitated back to political power and independence, but they must wait until these conditions are in all respects fulfilled.”[55]

The House of Representatives, after organizing, immediately proposed to the Senate a joint committee to “inquire into the condition of the states which formed the so-called Confederate States of America, and report whether they, or any of them, are entitled to be represented in either house of Congress.” The Senate accepted the proposal, and on December 13 the committee was formed.[56]

Five months passed before the committee reported. During that interval Congress took no action determining the question at issue. A vast number of bills and resolutions was introduced proposing various modes of treatment for the southern states and various theories regarding their status, which are interesting to the historian, but all of which fell by the way. The Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, if it had become law during this period, would have implied that in the opinion of Congress the late Confederate States were simply territory of the United States and not states in the Union.[57] But this bill failed to be repassed over the President’s veto.[58] The Civil Rights Bill, which became law on April 9, 1866, made it a crime to discriminate against any person on account of his race or color under the alleged authority of any state law or custom, gave the federal judicial authorities power to arrest and punish any person guilty of this offense, and also gave the federal courts jurisdiction over any case before a state court in which such discrimination was attempted.[59] This law created entirely new relations between federal and state authority, but since it was passed as an act to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment,